Different types of student comments in the mathematics classroom

In this paper five classrooms at grades 5–7 (students aged 11–14 years) are studied for one week each during their mathematics lessons. The aim is to study the students’ comments in order to develop categories describing the comments’ different contributions to the mathematical discourse. The main categories developed are student initiatives, explanations, partial answers, teacher-led responses and unexplained answers. The practices analysed are all dominated by the IRE pattern (Initiation–Response–Evaluation), and the different categories of student comments can be seen as a description of the different types of ‘R’ (student response) from the IRE pattern. This also illustrates that different patterns can be hidden behind the IRE-label. The categories can be used to study student comments on a turn-by-turn basis, describing different types of student contribution to the mathematical discourse.